Michael’s Comments (group member since Mar 07, 2009)

Michael’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Ben wrote: "no man! you deleted the mysterious reverend's book! i forget his real name, it was lawrence or something i think. but i didn't know who it was either so i clicked on him a while ago and figured it ..."

His avatar was Orsen Welles, but his handle was "The Reverend Doctor Faust". I wrote to him asking if we was coming over to Goodreads, but haven't heard back from him. Is the Rev. amongst us under a new name?
mm

Shel wrote: "And thank you for all of the thank you's! I am happy to finally get going on something I talked about doing at the Dork last year...!"

Good to see Master Borges on our list Shel. May I suggest we also add some Poe (Berenice anyone?) and some Jack London (so many to choose from!) If I had to pick one I'd go with "Love Of Life", but here is a good collection for you to sample;

http://www.jacklondons.net/northstori...

mm

Bonita wrote: "

Michael wrote: Angularity, precision, Anton.

Yes!
"

I noted that Chekov twice calls Anna's naiveté a youthful "angularity". Sweet.

Don't get me wrong; I was bored with the whole love story here (and maybe that was intentionally done), but I have nothing but the hightest respect for Anton's ability with the short story form. Maybe we should read another?

Abi wrote: "One of my favourite bits is the red shoe scene. Proust is at his sharpest when he's satirising. It provides the perfect contrast to the philosophical reverie, and this one just strips fin-de-siecle..."

Excellent scene Abi. "‘It would be a joke in charming taste,’ replied he ironically." I hadn't come away from my tussle with Proust with an appreciation for his humor. But there it is plain as day.
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Martha wrote: "I'm still mulling this story over (after reading it last night), and I think I could take or leave the lovey-dovey, soap opera, are-they-in-love-or-is-it-just-a-passing-fling aspect of the story...."

Quite. Even Chekov says about our heroine “Gurov felt bored already, listening to her.” And the reader can identify. Gurov muses to himself once back in Moscow, “Had there been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in his relations with Anna Sergeyevna?” (italics mine) I wondered the same thing.

Oh, boo-hoo. My bourgeous life is boring There is “no escaping or getting away from it – just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.” A madhouse I say!

How “stupid and worrying it is” declaims our hero. Indeed.

But give Chekov his props: the frame in which he works is (was) original and as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, highly imitated. He is a craftsman and an artist. Note the description of the Crimea; the lilac and gold weather, the mists and dews, the “monotonous hollow sound”.

Note also: “As in all provincial theatres, there was a fog above the chandelier.”

And my personal favorite line, ““She was sitting, he was standing, frightened by her confusion and not venturing to sit down beside her. The violins and the flute began tuning up.”

Angularity, precision, Anton.

Martyn wrote: "Start with The Dead."

No. Start with Araby.

Esther wrote: "Patty wrote: "http://rhetoric.byu.edu/

they've got prosopopoeia, antiprosopopoeia, ethopoeia, pathopoeia

but nothing that ends with moron, sorry! awesome source for rhetorical terms, though. "

..."


Thanks for the assistance Ester. These two suffix related questions have been plaguing me for years. It does sound like we have found some "poeia" kin, but it really intrigues me that we can find no "moron" relatives. Interesting...I wonder if they died off like homo neanderthalenis? Homo moronicus?

Since posting the original question, though, I have finally lost all shame and begun to coin words at will to suit my own personapoeia – maybe “personapoetic instinct”. For example in another thread I called the poetic justice of Marytn’s return to the group “kismetipoeia”. There is a lot of potential here.

As for “moron”, for an example: early moronic behavior, not of the homo moronicus variety, but say acting too partied up too early in the evening, say before 11:00 PM, could be termed paleomoronic? Or maybe, “common behavior” could be the work of a stereomoron? Again, a lot of potential here.

;)

Cheers,
mm

Ry wrote: "I'm going to piggyback on Maureen's statement here. I think that Joyce is the author who has come the closest to making prose sound like poetry."

Do any of you have a good recommendation for an audio version of FW? Not that I want to listen to FW on DVD in the car; rather I am aiming towards FW on reel-to-reel for around the den, and then eventually out in the sun room of the old folks home. I'd like to begin comparing renditions if anyone has some suggestions for where to start.

Does Ozzie do a version?

Not that you should avoid having the printed word in front of your face, e.g. "of all pensible ways", what genius.
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Lauren wrote: "I think its great how if you say a word over and over again, it ceases to have meaning for that brief time and sounds completely fascinating.
"

I have that issue with the word "who". (This is probably why Pete Townsend named the band as he did.) First, it doesn't sound anything like it is spelled. It should be sounded "we-Hoe" (accent on the second syllable) I swear. But secondly, and I think this is the same root cause to Swanny's issues with the word "the", there is the brutal monosyllabicosity of it. One can drill a single syllable into one's head until it is meaningless so much easier than one can with even a two syllable word. Yathink? Yathink? Yathink? Yathink?

Chris wrote: "Adrian wrote: "God, look at the moderators! It appears to be an Internet rogues gallery.

I think the moderators should have to wear outrageous costumes and fight each other in an arena.

"

How do you get to the list of moderators. I want to change some aliases.
Maybe ..."

Chris wrote: I'm printing out this little gem of quotations and sharing them with my AP students. They wrote novels themselves this year (in groups of 3-4) and they are just freaking amazing. They'll appreciate the bizarre horror of this linguistic noodling."

Welcome to our new home Swanny. Glad you could make it. It is not as if the freaky quotes don't keep on coming either. PFL is page after page of mangluage. Have your class follow this link to more and more examples of the new post-grammaticism:

PFL

Or even better! I think Ben is sending the book to Mo (don't forget to include something in the package), and then on to Lauren-Mischief. But...maybe it should take a trip to Atlanta so that your *whole class* could disect it!??? Awesome thought.

mm

Shel wrote: "Brian, I'll create it. And if for some reason you run out of MBs, we can use my MobileMe.

I will have to scan and send you my DFW story from the Mar 9 New Yorker if you don't have it already."

Please do! I went on something of a cathartic binge and loaded myself up, and the shared folder, on DFW journalism. Any additions would be welcome. RIP DFW.

Margaret wrote: "All right mr. director, slow down. although I also feel after the initial rush people have laxed abit. I'd love too work on a project this summer. just not yet. I'm kinda swamped for a while. Why d..."

Oh ha! I'll slow down. It was a terribly busy weekend for me, driving a system implementation which was happening from here to Tampa to London to Manila, and many points inbetween. By the time I hit FFredux lasy evening I guess I was still in marching mode. Didn't mean anything by I said, other than to connect with you folks. Though I do think Ben could take on the group's description to good affect.

Love you too Mare.

I'm fine with full tilt moderator authority. I doubt this will be too daunting a commitment and, unlike Dan, suspect I can set the bar low and then still disappoint.
mm

Ben wrote: "i don't like directing conversation, but i do like moving things around and cleaning things up and having the ability to delete people who piss me off. so i guess that means i am desirous of low-le..."

Ben, you mentioned earlier that one thing you would like to do is give the group Description on the front page a make over. I vote that you go for it. I suspect that you will improve it greatly on your first pass, and then you can make it your personal canvas for future updates, comments on the general timbre of the group at that time, etc. Great use of your moderator creds, and a task you could take ownership of.

Sound like a plan?
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Patty wrote: "i'm happy to moderate at a medium-high level. whatever you need me to do, i'm there. "

I think Patty HAS to be a moderator. It just makes too much sense.

Shel wrote: "Now I feel badly for posting a long-ass thing about rules and stuff.

Seriously, it's not that big a time commitment.

If we grow to 10,000 members we'll just hire someone and pay them in brillian..."

We wouldn't expect anything less than a long ass thing about rules and stuff from you! You need and deserve the highest level authority. If you lose your head, become power hungry, and resort to long ass things about rules and stuff, Ben's mid level authority should be enough to sabotage you...mein furchtloser leiter!




Ben wrote: "i don't like directing conversation, but i do like moving things around and cleaning things up and having the ability to delete people who piss me off. so i guess that means i am desirous of low-le..."

Margaret wrote: "I don't want to be a moderator. In fact I probably need moderation. I really just want to mess about and have fun. But if you need one more I will do it. Or you can keep me on a back up list or som..."

You come to us for moderation Mare, and we are touched.

One thought: you were a active participant in the Backspace project. I wonder what you could to promote something like that in our new space? Maybe light a fire under Egret?

Patrick wrote: "I wouldn't mind being a moderator, but I worry about getting drunk with power and creating double standards and being a hypocrite. Beside the temptation to pimp out my book as a moderator and handi..."

Since you are concerned about becoming drunk with power you have reached the next level and can, in fact, now become drunk with power. Congratulations.

Ben wrote: "i have pfl right now. goodness! i am sending it on to mo next, i believe. unless mo says no. BUT YOU CAN'T SAY NO TO A PRESCRIPTION FOR LOVE!"

So Ben, did you ever get around to reading any of PFL, or did you just send it on to Mo unread?